LETTERS for January 26 issue

January 26, 2012

Each and every Sunday, dozens of motorbikes are driving up and down Honoapiilani Highway. The noise each of them produces makes the windows shake three blocks away, and usually there are at least three dozen per "pack." If you live even anywhere near Highway 30, then your teeth are rattling.

How do these guys get through safety inspection? And more to the point: WHERE ARE THE POLICE?

I am sure the windows of the police station at the Civic Center are also shaking. Are our finest afraid to take on the motorcycle gangs?

When the bike owners go to the safety inspection, do they "fix" the bike and then afterwards take the muffler out again? Otherwise, there is NO WAY they would get a safety sticker.

And as I said, law enforcement is restricted to writing parking tickets... never mind speeding, running red lights, using your cell WITHOUT your hands free - all SAFETY ISSUES.

And excessive noise? Who cares? Certainly not the police. Just a hint: IT HAPPENS EVERY SUNDAY!!!

Maybe a squad car could check it out for a change? The police could write at least 20 to 30 tickets and get rid of the nuisance.

JOHN BLAHUTA, Lahaina

THANKS FOR RETURNING MY WALLET

To Doug at Ed's Union Service in Lahaina, I want to express my sincere gratitude for mailing my wallet to me in California.

I lost my wallet at the gas station, someone turned it in (with the money intact), and Doug confirmed that he had the wallet and the money.

Doug mailed the wallet back to me in California the following day. To Doug and the original person that found my wallet, THANK-YOU!!!

Please patronize Ed's Union Service in Lahaina. Doug and staff will definitely take care of you.

DOUG CALHOUN, California

MISS MAUI CONTESTANT SEEKS DONATIONS

My name is Trina Lahela Akima, and I am getting ready to compete in the 2012 Miss Maui Scholarship Program that could take me to the Miss America pageant. As a contestant, I need your help to raise money for Children's Miracle Network and the Miss America Scholarship Fund. Please help me reach my goal of $100. Your donation will be considered a charitable donation for tax purposes, and a receipt will be provided at the end of the year.

Once you have completed a secure online donation, your donation will be included in my fundraising total on my personal page.

This year the Miss America Organization has teamed up with Children's Miracle Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and improving the lives of children by raising funds for children's hospitals. This new partnership gives each contestant the opportunity to raise awareness and funds for two great organizations: Miss America Organization and Children's Miracle Network.

The money that you donate will go to our very own Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children and The Shriner's Hospital for Children in Honolulu.

Thank you so much for your time and for your generous donation. May God bless you and your family. I vow to do my best in representing this beautiful place we call home.

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't the Fireworks/Firecrackers Rules under the Fire Control section indicate the following (quoted in Community News in Lahaina News): "Maui Fire Department reminds residents that fireworks and firecrackers can only be legally set off from 9 p.m. on New Year's Eve to 1 a.m. on New Year's Day. Setting off fireworks and firecrackers outside the designated times is punishable by law. Violators are subject to fines of up to $2,000."

This would be awesome if it was actually enforced and responded to by Maui Police Department and Maui Fire Department. Not to mention that the children are only eight and nine who were doing this.

This would be a great moneymaker for Maui County if they enforced it, and it would make an impression that this was a serious offense. If it is not enforced, then as usual, everyone knows they will not be fined and they will continue to violate the laws year after year.

Please, if we call and report the violation, respond and fine the parents and the children. Why waste time making a code if it is not being enforced. This violation started at approximately noon and continued until 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 31. Why do those of us who abide by the laws have to suffer this noise all day and nothing is done about it? Parents, be responsible and do not let your children violate the law.

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST

A WATCH BIRD IS WATCHING YOU

Careful when you text your friend; spooks are reading what you send...

The FBI now employs 36,000 people and focuses ever more on dissenters. The CIA, supposedly prohibited from spying domestically, now stations agents in local police departments. Homeland Security may legally confiscate your computer and smart phone at the airport, copy their contents and eventually give them back. Civilian agencies have drones to follow you. And that's just the beginning.

The FBI can secretly demand your financial records from your accountant, your medical records from your doctor and your travel routes from your cellphone company. Further, Congress has now ruled that if you're arrested on some terrorism charge, you shall be whisked off to Guantanamo to be tried by the military. Or just left there.

Most Americans, fortunately, aren't likely prospects for these or similar new Kafkaesque treatments. The chief targets just now are Muslims and liberal activists. U.S. Muslims are under such tight surveillance that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have felt emancipated by comparison.

Furthermore, thousands of peaceful protesters are arrested every year. An increasingly common game is to hold them with hands cuffed behind their backs and no access to restrooms until they are forced to urinate in their clothes. Cute.

Antiwar protesters are treated as America's next greatest threat to national security. They're spied upon, infiltrated and occasionally detained without charge. It's as though our political-economic structure would collapse if there were no more wars.

Under a little-known law that itself now faces a legal challenge, the government can also brand activists as "terrorists" if they try to document inhumane and unsanitary conditions at factory farms or laboratories that conduct tests on animals.

Indeed, the shortage of real terrorism in recent years is a challenge for our law enforcers. With no airliners tumbling from the sky or bombs shattering subways, how does one maintain public support for government snooping and airport inconvenience? Especially when the rest of the world is lightening up?

It would be a comfort to believe that all this domestic surveillance had receded under President Barack Obama. No such luck.

Homeland Security still wants us to snitch on our neighbors, and the FBI still conducts illegal wiretaps. Last year, Obama also signed a four-year extension of the dreaded U.S.A. Patriot Act. Spying on dissident citizens simply seems to be what governments do, and ours has certainly gotten the hang of it.